


Headlines

by Patches_KittyBlues



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Angst, I'm Sorry, Tons of brooding manpain, and manpain, apparently i can only write angst, im a horrible person, im sorry guys, tons of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 11:14:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5583700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patches_KittyBlues/pseuds/Patches_KittyBlues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If something were to happen to Felicity, something bad were to happen to Felicity, how would Oliver react, what would we see from him?"<br/>"Somewhere between confusion, desperation, complete and utter sadness and unbridled rage. Yeah, let's hope that doesn't happen."<br/>(HVFF 2015)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Headlines

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry guys, this is just angst. A whole lot of angst.

Oliver doesn’t go back to the apartment for weeks afterwards. Everything there reminds him of Felicity. Her heels kicked off by the door, her purse left on the coffee table, the pictures taken during their five months away together.  
The first night Oliver returns home, he sits on the couch, TV muted but on, until the headline rolls across the screen, _Breaking News: Smoak-Queen Engagement Ends in Tragedy_. He turns it off as quickly as he can, hands shaking, and eventually falls asleep on the couch, unwilling to go upstairs to their bedroom and sleep in their bed without her. When he does brave the stairs, he sits on their bed, head down, and lets his tears fall freely for the first time, begging the universe and everything in it for this to be a dream; for him to wake up and find her in his arms, so he can bury his nose in her hair and kiss her awake, hear her laugh like she had that last night when he had gotten down on one knee, ready to love her forever.  
He finally falls asleep. When he wakes up reaching for her, the left side of the bed is empty and cold. Her glasses aren’t sitting on the bedside table, because they are sitting in a box by the door. The one with her coat folded in it, and her phone, now with a cracked screen that would have made her cry, and a ring that he can’t bring himself to look at. That ring was a promise, one that was emptier than he would have believed.  
Some days he walks downstairs, expecting to see her filling the room with her smile and the sound of her voice, the one he still heard in his dreams; or in the middle of the night after waking from the nightmares that haunt him once more, he’ll call her phone and convince himself that this time she’ll answer. But she doesn’t.  
Because she isn’t here anymore. And so no one is there when he wakes from his nightmares. No one whispers, “It was all a dream,” and rubs soft circles into his hand as he catches his breath. Now his whole universe, waking and sleeping, is a nightmare. And on the days he does wake up, clouded in confusion and alone, he remembers that night, with the clarity of a heartbreak, and the finality of a lost forever.

-

The only clarity he carries with him in the months after her death, is the need to bring justice to those who have done this. He hadn’t protected Felicity like he should have, like he had wanted to. Her words, ‘my life, my choice’ had been brave words, but Oliver just wishes now that it had been different. He would never wish for their life to not have happened, it had made him a better man, a better person. He had felt like a hero then, but now he just feels desperate.  
Desperate for her to hold him to hear her voice again. Desperate for Felicity to not be…..dead. The darkness was never supposed to touch her. But Oliver knows that this time, there is no returning from the grave, there is no saving her.  
And that acceptance, that grief and longing brings another kind of desperation. One that brings along with it the recklessness of a hopeless man, with nothing left to live for and the scrolling headlines, _Green Arrow: Wanted Vigilante_.  
Nights are now spent out in the cold and the dark. A masked figure with a hood shadowing his face. A man to be reckoned with. One out for revenge, for blood. Because coming home isn’t worth it anymore.

 

-

The news this morning reads, _Funeral to be held today for Felicity Smoak, CEO of Palmer Tech; Family requests privacy_. And standing there at the cemetery, he first feels it. The lack of color only reminds him of the lack of her in his life. No more bright shades of lipstick and dresses. No more bright blue eyes behind glasses and painted nails moving across a keyboard. His world is as dark as the suit he's wearing and the ones worn by all of their friends, their team who here with him, feeling her absence as well. His world is as colorless as the snow that now covers the ground around him and as bland as the grey skies and the headstone in front of him. Her headstone. And it hits him. His light, his life, is gone. She had spent all those nights saving him and in the end he hadn't been able to keep his promise. She was never safe with him.  
There was so much he still had to tell her, about the island, his nightmares, everything. She had deserved everything.  
And standing there at her grave, Oliver felt the loneliness of a petite babbling blonde gone from his side, a partner in his crusade, a friend, a future. He felt the loss of all the conversations they would have had, all the things they would have shared, all of the good they would have brought together. He felt the loss and it broke him. He had known that she would be his forever. But what did someone do when their forever was gone?  
His future has an empty Felicity-sized hole in it. One that had once held happiness, love, a home. One that was now filled with complete, utter sadness. 

-

John Diggle hears it on the news, sitting at home. He doesn’t want to believe it. He had returned home from the lair last night in time to put Sara to bed, but Oliver had refused to get some rest. Memories of the past years run through his head, and he closes his eyes. He remembers hearing Felicity’s happy voice calling them Team Arrow; Oliver’s stubborn insistence that they not call themselves that. But Diggle was never one to deny the truth; in some ways, he had seen this coming.  
_Green Arrow: Oliver Queen unmasked in fatal last fight_ ; Thea sees the news, walking out of a small cafe she frequents now. She runs to her car and drives with shaking hands to the lair. The elevator doors open on an empty room. Felicity’s computers are off, as they have been since she had been killed, since Darhk sent men to kill her, since Ollie and she had been rushed to the hospital, since the emergency surgery had failed, and Felicity had flatlined, declared dead. Ollie’s bow is gone. The Green Arrow’s suit is missing from the glass case. Thea falls to the floor, screaming her despair, but the concrete walls provide no comfort without the team that once filled this space.  
Laurel finds her there. She still comes down here often, trying to help everyone in any way she can. She had been tempted of course, with pills and drink when Felicity had first died. But Laurel had stayed strong, focusing on fighting for good, trying not to drown her grief but to embrace it and recognize the loss of her friend. She hadn’t had enough time to get to know the girl, but they had been teammates and Laurel missed her dearly. When she finds Thea, sobbing on the floor of the lair, she wraps her up in her arms, and sinks down with her, squeezing her eyes shut against the pain of losing Felicity and now Oliver. 

Black eyes and bruised knuckles had become common in the months after her death, and so had a body count. Oliver’s feelings of pain, hurt, loss...they had all made way for this one. Anger. Fury. Unbridled rage. Everyone close to him, at some point, had come to talk to him. They had pushed back their sorrow and grief to reach out to him. And he had pushed them all away. Oliver’s mind had returned to an island, but this one is was so much worse than purgatory, and Oliver didn’t expect to ever come home again. He had returned to a kill or be killed world. Oliver had called Felicity his light, ‘the one who lights my way’. She had kindled a light in Oliver. But as he conquered Darhk and took his revenge, the winds raged, the rain fell, and the people who loved Oliver Queen watched his light fade and the darkness win.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are much appreciated :)


End file.
